5 month old ga-78lmt-usb3 won't post now

[smooth_cannibal]

i sent a ticket already yesterday but since i may not hear back for a while i will make a thread as i don't know much else to try if there is anything. i believe the motherboard may have gone. ticket number says 25091 if staff should see this.

i am no stranger to this issue but i am stumped (6th build). post is lengthy but how the problems started may be more of an insight as to whats failing. the mobo, cpu, hdd, ram were all bought brand new at the same time from microcenter just after christmas '13. the psu was from my last build about 3 years ago and the sound blaster has been with me about 10 years.

ga-78lmt-usb3 revision 5 mobo with onboard hd 3000 graphics (no video card yet)
fx-6350 cpu
crucial ballistx 1333 mhz ddr3 ram 2 x 4gb
500 watt psu (now a brand new 650 watt to have ruled out a bad power supply)
1tb barracuda hdd
sound blaster audigy 2 sound card
win 7 pro 64-bit

haven't overclocked with this board at all.

my speakers had crapped out and i wanted to blast some music so i took my machine in to the living room as i have done before to hook up to the surround sound. after about 20 minutes for no reason the sound started not functioning. more than one audio program would stop working but no crashes or errors. restart would fix but not cure the issue. i just took out the sound blaster and went back to audio through the hdmi. haven't reinstalled the audigy card.

 system seems to have worked just find til yesterday

powering up it hanged at the windows welcome screen then went black. it would boot to safe mode but not normal. after a third try to get it to boot normally it stopped working all together.

everything powers up (hdd activity led doesn't light up) no beeps. speaker is connected and i know it works.

first i tried a different (but old) psu. same thing. like specs say i just replaced with a brand new 650 watt today for a total of 3 psu tried.

i've taken out the ram and tried each stick separately in all 4 slots, bread boarded it to rule out shorting. tried the vga plug. cables all verified to work with a different system. cleared cmos in every way. ran it without ram and no beeps either. made sure battery was good and tried a different one to rule it out.

i've inspected board and all components thoroughly with a flash light and i don't see burns, bad capacitors, or smell fried electronics. none of the plugs are melted or anything. at this point everything has been reseated from inspecting it. i was as always careful. static band and no carpet

the only thing i can't do is test the motherboard and cpu in another working system. only have a ghetto optiplex thats intel and ddr2 so i am not without a comp of some kind.

if there is anything else i can try or overlooked please reply.

[Vezina]

You ve paired a low level board with a great but hungry CPU ,thus the short life.

I would get a board with more power phases for the CPU.
Or RMA it and use with the replacement a 95W TDP CPU.
The 6350 is 125W TDP if i am not mistaking.

The board was designed with Phenom 2 CPU-s in mind and was "recycled" as a low cost solution for FX CPU-s that have special power needs.

[smooth_cannibal]

thuban and denab came in a 125 tdp, i can't find any versions of this board that didn't support a 125 watt cpu. i do my homework when i buy my parts for a while and this board had more great reviews than a lot of other ones even running the 8 core 125 watt overclocked for longer and harder than i have pushed this board which is not at all. this is my first go with an amd as i was an intel guy and am always looking to learn more.

i'm curious as to what sort of special power requirements the fx has.

[Vezina]

First of all your board is a budget oriented board ,as such the CPU VRM is designed with costs optimization in mind.

This board also features a chipset not intended to be used with a FX CPU s (even if Gigabyte forced it to be used for commercial reasons), it works generally speaking , but there are limitations in some aspects ,reaching full performance may not be possible and some power management features are missing.

It has been proven that the CPU VRM for a FX needs to be better designed that the one for a Phenom 2 CPU.Hardware forums are source of information regarding this.High end boards that were running just fine overclocked 4 cores Phenoms had issues with six and octacore FX CPU-s with same TDP rating.
The FX  core boost and other advanced CPU power management features require a better CPU VRM design than the ones that were ok with a Phenom 2 ,in spite of the same overall TDP.

In my opinion based on some experience i would tell you again that the usage for long term purpose of a FX CPU-s with 125W TDP should be avoided on that board.It has an outdated CPU VRM design and an outdated chipset.Install that CPU in a better board for more satisfaction.

[smooth_cannibal]

good info. i did come across some of it on forum threads but some stuff is hard to pick apart. amd bashers, people who may or may not know what they are talking about, or people getting flamed for not buying the best and most expensive. i don't really play with overclocking at all til close to the end of warranty periods which is when i usually start a new build so a lot of features on a newer board didn't really appeal to me.

i do try and look for stuff like you mentioned. i also had seen that the board supported the phenom 2 x6 and i couldn't find any real proof that the fx were killing these boards or any with an older 760g chipset. i figured it was fine since i wasn't overclocking or using higher end components as well as the vrm having a heatsink and overall system ran much cooler in general than i thought it would. i did kind of cheap out a bit with this board as my old intel rig died and i needed a comp for getting back into college (after 6 years off) that i could do some gaming on since the new consoles aren't impressing me.

since it is under warranty i am going to rma it, sell it off, and be on the lookout for a better board. going to cut into my gpu budget a lot and put that off another month which sucks. i assume just look for a decent 9xxx chipset series then?

shame too as this has been one of the best builds i've ever had. i had it up and running in under 90 minutes including win7 without even one hiccup.